Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
And I say it’s all right– The Beatles

Whatever your beliefs — or non-beliefs — about Good Friday and Easter, I think most people would agree that this is a welcome season of renewal after a long, dark winter. While I certainly don’t discount the literal story of Jesus, I see a deeper meaning to the story of the sage’s crucifixion and resurrection, something that represents both rebirth and the spiritual journey of each and every living soul. For was not Jesus just a spirit in the material world like the rest of us, borne out of the same cosmic source, indeed, animated by the same God particles within us all.

Tonight I have been perusing articles on my fave Theosophy site, and one has stood out for me: Eastertide — Season of Renewal, by W. Albertson. I think I pointed to it last Easter, and the Easter before . . . Smiles . . . I guess it is becoming a tradition, yes? It resonates with me, it strikes a chord. Here’s an excerpt. If you are interested, click on the link to read the whole article.

With every dawning spring, nature gives her message to all alike, setting forth in flower-symbols the lesson of rebirth, the awakening to new life and activity of the inner abiding soul. It is when we realize that sunlight and showers are shared by all, irrespective of the barriers that have arisen between man and man, that a deeper sense of the meaning of Easter, a fuller grasp of the truth it holds for the whole of humanity, can come to us and deepen our joy in the springtime.

As we study the religions of the peoples of earth, we find that each of them attaches great significance to certain symbols and truths. The crucifixion, the entombment, the resurrection, and the Christ glorified are found in one form or another in the traditional teachings or myths from which the Christian religion has descended. We are irresistibly drawn into a worldwide company to whom inspiration and light have come from the universal source of wisdom by means of many teachers of humanity.

Duality is the first idea we must grasp in the application of these symbols — the duality of spirit and matter; the aim of world-manifestation being to inform the world-matter with spirit, to lift it to knowledge of its divine essence. Everything in the great cycle of experience shares this duality. Each of us is a divine spirit which has chosen to assume body after body of matter in order gradually to awaken in the entities of the body the fire of higher consciousness. Life is an entombment of the spirit in matter until the divinity of the spirit conquers its dark surroundings and finds its way to the light again, bearing the fruit of earthly experience.

The crucifixion, according to the wisdom-teaching of all time, is not the death agony of only one of humanity’s helpers named Jesus the Christ. It is the struggle for conquest between spirit and matter in all mankind: the age-long striving by which the desires and appetites of the lower nature are gradually purified and directed toward the higher life, to what makes for spiritual mastery. The Christ crucified typifies this; and the penitent thief to whom Christ says “This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise,” represents the part of the lower nature that has welcomed the divine influence and become one with it; while the thief on the other side is the unconquered passion and desire that no longer cling to the soul that has freed itself from the body. The tomb symbolizes the bondage in which the soul imprisoned in bodily desires suffers. The resurrection is the rising of the soul triumphant over the longings of the flesh; it is the symbol of the inner god triumphant over the animal. The crucifixion then applies to every member of the human family, and not only to those elder brothers of the race who come as teachers at certain periods. — W. Albertson, from Eastertide: Season of Renewal

Food for thought on this solemn day. Personally, while I feel in my heart the above words to be true, I don’t have a shred of evidence to prove it. Such is the nature of faith. But one thing I do know: spring, and light, is here, and my neck of the woods is coming to life again. I heard a woodpecker playing Wipeout on a tree this morning. And I could smell the scent of cedars when I got home tonight. And oh yes, I’m still releasing ladybugs out my bedroom window, with a song in my heart . . . . Born Free . . .

Yes, the miracle of renewal is unfolding before my eyes again and in my heart and soul.

Hallelujah!

Jillian

We are not brought into existence by chance nor thrown up into earth-life like wreckage cast along the shore, but are here for infinitely noble purposes.—Katherine Tingley

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